EYE ON DANCE REVIEW - THEY ROSE AT DAWN

Review in "Performing Arts: Dance - Aparna Ramaswamy"
Deirdre Tower, EyeOnDance.org
October 7, 2015

In her NY debut at The Joyce Theatre, Aparna Ramaswamy’s fingers shimmy, beckon, beseech, and demand with as much expression as her eyes. Her heels flex as she lightly hops, and lunge with her arms making parallel lines with her legs. Wearing one orange and gold costume throughout, Ramaswamy appears to be inexhaustible, an elegant blaze of energy, capable of throwing her focus with equal intensity to the magnetic poles.

In a preview article on web magazine The Dance Enthusiast, Ramaswamy shares that, ”You must see the music and hear the dance.” In They Rose at Dawn, a world premiere, she makes her dance be the embodiment of power and strength. She dances in complete synchronicity with her musical ensemble led by Preethy Mahesh (vocals), C.K. Vasudevan (nattuvangam), Sakthiveal Muruganatham (mridangam), Sruthi Sagar (flute), Anjna Swaminathan (violin). That musical/dance alignment is so consistent that one might wonder whether any divergence is frowned upon?

In Varnan, which means colour, Ramaswamy softened her presence, and her phrasing lengthened. Alarmed Valli, her teacher and the choreographer for this dance, is quoted in the program as saying “the two most important aspects of Bharatanatyam - Nritta (abstract dance) and Abhinaya (dance theatre) are women into a unique dance tapestry.”

Ramaswamy has devoted her life to mastering the intricacies of this 2,000 year old South Indian dance form, Bharatanatyam, with her mother Ranee and in India, where she was born. The Ramaswamy mother-daughter team direct Ragamala Dance Company in Minneapolis with devotion to the traditions, as well as awareness of the tensions between the “ancestral and the contemporary.”